


And If I Am Four Words I Am Needing of Your Love

by scifidreamer



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, F/M, Secret Relationship, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifidreamer/pseuds/scifidreamer
Summary: Every summer for the past four years  26 year old Ph.D candidate Ginny Baker has worked as a staff archaeologist at Mayan sites around Chichen Itza. Mayan archaeology isn't even her speciality. But it's where she met her people, her family. It's where she met Mike Lawson, and it's what kept them in contact.
Relationships: Ginny Baker/Mike Lawson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34
Collections: Pitch Valentine's Gift Exchange 2020





	And If I Am Four Words I Am Needing of Your Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outtonight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outtonight/gifts).



> I hope this is an okay story for you! I tried to incorporate the tropes in an entertaining way, hopefully it worked.  
> I aged Ginny up 3 years, but kept Mike the same age. And Ginny and Mike have been dating for a little over a year by the time this story takes place. They've kept it a secret to allay fears Ginny has as a young, black woman academic.

Ginny kicked the sheet off and groaned when it barely moved to her knees. One would think after four summers spent out in the Yucatan she’d be used to the heat and humidity. But obviously one would be wrong. Because she wasn’t, and trying to fall asleep while sticky with sweat, and unable to cool off was proving difficult. Who knew shoe box size rooms did not cool off faster. She’d have to seriously consider if having her own room was worth this. She looked over at the bedside table, seeing her phone, and for all of one second debated not texting MIke-- damnit no, Lawson, before quickly reaching over for it and opening her text thread with him.

_Old man, tell me you're dying too._

She was scooching over looking for a cool spot on the bed when her phone pinged.

_Rookie some us are trying to sleep. Did you forget what time we need to be up?_

_Ugh, fine. Also, not a rookie. Haven’t been for awhile now. How many times must we do this?_

_Rookie, you will always be a rookie compared to me. This is our thing. Don't act like it isn’t. Now, it’s almost 11PM, and some of us aren’t naturally beautiful and need that beauty rest. I truly feel for those of you._

Ginny let out a loud guffaw as she read. Oh you dick, she thought.

_I can’t even with you old man. Nite. Miss you. See you in the morning._

Ginny’s alarm went off way too early, but she trudged out of bed and into the shower to rinse the sweat off. Still half asleep, the thought of Mike in the shower came unbidden. The water sluicing down his sun browned shoulders and chest, lower still to his abdomen. . .

She jolted upright. Holy shit! No Ginny, don’t go there! This was absolutely not how she wanted to start this dig season. She quickly finished her shower and threw on clothes appropriate for today’s dig-- athletic leggings, sports bra, and a baggy shirt with the sleeves cut off.

When she saw Mike in the breakfast line the first thing he said was, “Stealing my look Rookie,” before piling more fruit on his plate.

“You wished you looked this good,” she tossed back, jostling his shoulder with her own, and loading up her plate. Mike was indeed wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, but he paired his with cargo shorts.

“You ready for this year’s dig season,” he asked.

“The dig season, yes. The summer of undergrads looking to party, get drunk, underestimate the heat, the humidity, and their hormones, et cetera et cetera,” she gave him a dry look, “Not so much.”

He laughed and shaking his head said, “Damn Baker. Can’t even throw back that was once you; you’ve always been so tightly focused.”

They walked over to a table together. In between bites he asked, “So, wanna tell me how much you love me for not having you run orientation yesterday?”

Ginny felt a light blush heat her cheeks. She wanted to scoff, but instead tilted her head to the side and deadpanned, “Lawson, I love you so much for not scheduling me to run orientation.”

Mike just laughed, shaking his head.

“The insolence,” he said, right as she quipped, “Happy?”

He nodded his head. “Very much so.”

“Well I was raised to respect my elders, so,” she got out before erupting in laughter at his exaggerated chagrin.

He tossed a torn off piece of toast at her head.

“Youth today,” he mumbled.

She waved her hand dismissively, “You love me, and anyways you're such a kid at heart, Mike. I may as well be older than you.”

“Oh rookie. Precocious you may have been, sore at losing you still are.”

“Alright Yoda. You cheat!,” she pointed at him with her fork, “No, you do!” she insisted when he tried to interrupt.

“Hey guys, do I even wanna know what’s got you all riled up this early in the morning?” Blip asked sitting down next to Ginny.

“Just in a good mood I didn’t have to run orientation,” Ginny replied, cheesing at Blip.

“It’s not that bad,” he insisted. “I don’t know why you’re such a baby about it.” He forked more eggs in his mouth.

Ginny was already dripping sweat, it was barely 9AM, and they still had at least half a mile to walk through dense, uncut jungle. Heading up the back of the group with Livan, she could barely hear the sound of machetes hacking through vegetation. One time when she’d been up front a snake and been disturbed and fallen out of a tree in front of her. She’d shrieked okay, but who the heck wouldn’t have? And the thing was, Ginny thought, her mind half on the potential of a new temple site, she didn’t mind the undergrads; she liked seeing them get excited over the small finds. It’s just that so many of them had no idea what to expect for just about any part of an archaeological digs: the accommodations, the heat, the labor involved, and some were just too whiny about it all.

And Ginny had been there too. Away from her dad, on dig completely unrelated to him, hundreds of miles between them. Excited, and feeling like a noob. But still.

But still, it was unfair to compare herself to these undergrads. She sighed.

Maybe seeing Mike that first year had kept her attention on him. And between Mike and archaeology there just wasn’t room for the antics her cohort got up to.

____________________

One week in and Mike sidled up to Ginny, his bare shoulder and arm barely grazing her’s, “How many of these kids are thinking this is nothing like Indiana Jones?” he huffed.

She grinned at him, “All of them. There’s a structure beneath this hill, maybe even a temple, but Indy goes into already cleared away spaces. He’s definitely not hauling rocks and bucketsful of dirt. Or sifting it all through screens.” She glanced at his arms and chest, unknowingly biting the inside of her lower lip. Her eyes flicked back up to his, “He definitely didn’t come by his muscles like you did.” She swallowed deeply.

Mike’s own grin had faded at her perusal and obvious effect it had on her. He leaned in a little closer, “God, Ginny you can’t look at me like that. Especially not out here.” His eyes swept the area, and he reluctantly took a couple steps away from her. She nodded her head in understanding and looked back down at her clipboard with part of the dig grid.

Throughout the start of the long, hot summer Mike was everywhere. He was finally settling into his role as site director, and Ginny was glad to see that ease in him. She also envied the spanish that came so much faster to him than it did her. Nevermind that he’d been speaking it longer. Ginny loved to do anything Mike could do, and tell him she could do it better. She repeatedly reminded him it was all a part of her charm. And he repeatedly reminded her to dream on.

_____________

Somewhere in the middle of the third week, Ginny woke up in the middle of the night knowing two things almost simultaneously: it was way too hot, and she was about to throw up. There was probably no causation but she felt miserable all the same. Her hand blindly reached out grabbing her phone as she hurried to the toilet. She dry heaved hunched over the trash can. She was so glad she slept with her hair pulled up and covered with a scarf. When she was done she dialed Mike--Lawson, she thought. She couldn’t slip up and give everything away. That would not be on her.

“Hey,” Mike’s sleep roughened voice greeted her. She felt tears prick her eyes.

“Mike,” she said miserably, “I don’t feel so good.”

“Whas th’matter?” he asked sleepily right as she started dry heaving again. Her sniffles after were soft. “Ahhh, my poor rookie’s got something huh? Alright, I’ll be right over with the medkit. Check you out. Be there in a few,” he said before hanging up. Mike shared a bungalow with Blip and Livan. It had lots of screens and probably had a breeze going through it. Ginny sighed with wistfulness.

She dragged herself out the bathroom to unlock her door, backtracked to grab the bathroom trash can, and got back in bed just as Mike knocked softly before letting himself in. “Hey Gin, let’s check you out,” he said as he set the kit on the side of the bed and sat next to it.

He took out a thermometer, and placed it in her mouth.

“Did you wake up feeling nauseous, or has it been going on for some time?” he asked as the thermometer started beeping.

“Woke up sweaty and queasy,” she answered.

“Well the good news is you don’t have a fever. Your temp’s a little elevated but 99.1 isn’t too bad. Do you think you're sick, or maybe food poisoning?”

She sighed, “I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m burning up, but I’m just so sweaty, like not what I’m used to out here. I just hate feeling sick.”

“I know babe. We’ll keep an eye on it, but unless you ate something else with dinner that no one else did, that kinda rules out food poisoning.”

(Dinner had been carnitas, frijoles de la hoya, rice, and so much fruit. Dinner had also been when Blip had asked her when she would be done with her doctorate. “G, when are you finally gonna join us out Cali? Evelyn is dying to go apartment hunting. She keeps sending me links to places. I told her I don’t know what amenities are musts for you. Oh! And she wants me to tell you beach weather all year around, and moving in January just means bonfires and beers and cozy sweaters.” Their table all laughed.  
“Well, actually,” Ginny laughed nervously, “I’m done. I defended my dissertation in May, turned in all my submissions, and the Sunday we started here, I received an email from my advisor letting me know I had the three signatures I needed.” Blip and Livan lead the table in letting out loud whoops while Ginny laughed joyously. “I’m a doctor, y’all!”  
“We need to celebrate,” Mike said, clapping his hands together.  
“So does this mean you can actually move to California?” all eyes whipped to Blip where he was holding his phone up, Evelyn on the screen.  
“You work fast,” Mike said to Blip in awe as Evie shushed him.  
“Yeah, actually I was offered a position at UCSD. I start in the fall,” she said over Evelyn’s happy screaming.)

“I can give you a cool pack, and some antacids. Leave some tylenol. It’s cooler in my cabana, you wanna come?”

“Can we share a bed,” she asked petulantly, knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” he readily answered, “You just gotta keep your hands to yourself.” He shook his head ruefully, “I’m going to be real Ginny, I don’t think you can do it. You get all octopus hands whenever you’re near this bod and a bed.” He laughed as she hit him square in the face with a pillow. She scoffed at him, “As if.”

“You want me to stay here with you?” he offered.

She smiled softly at him,”I mean yes, but no,” she said wryly. “It’d just get even hotter. You’re like an oven, which is perfect for cold nights, but not so much now. And also, it might make people look at us a little closer than we want.”

“Yeah,” he agreed with her. “We’ll see how you're feeling in the morning and take it from there. I love you.” He leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth. He pulled out the medicines to leave with her then packed up and headed out.

________________

Four days later Ginny was out walking a ten acre freshly plowed field with ten students, everyone doggedly walking horizontally across it in as straight as possible lines, with their eyes on the ground looking for pottery shards, worked stone or metal, or anything else that might potentially be Mayan in origin. It was arduous only because there was no relief from the sun, unlike at the temple. It beat down on them relentlessly, only stopping when clouds moved in and dumped rain on them for fifteen minutes before moving on. And it wasn’t even a relief because the humidity pretty much stayed the same.

They had been at it for almost three hours and the sunscreen she applied frequently was mixing with her sweat and dripping down her forehead, both slipping her sunglasses further down her nose and stinging her eyes. But her field team was excited with their finds, and she knew they only had to be at this for a couple more hours. She could power through. She had to.

She was about half way down her fifth row when she pulled up a short with a terrible notion. She felt her heart speed up, and bent over at her waist.

Ohshitohshitohshitohshit.

She stood back up. Okay, she was being silly.

Deep breath in. And out.

She had her period last month, right? When?

She heard some call her name, and waving her arm signaling she was okay, she resumed walking. She kept her eyes on the tilled earth, and let only a small part or brain focus on this ridiculous, most likely not even a concern, thing.

She had her period around the beginning of May. They were a little over a week away from July.

Oh god, how could she have not noticed she hadn’t started yet. Fuck was she really so dickmatized by Mike that seeing him for the first time in two weeks had her forgetting her period? Fuck. FUCK. fuckfuckfuckfuck.

So like, being late didn’t automatically mean pregnant, but shit she was like three weeks late. Was that normal for her? Her brain was so scrambled right now she couldn’t remember. Oh man, maybe she was going to be sick. Was she going to stress throw up?

No. nononononononononono. She was not.

No throwing up for ANY reasons.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she was so grateful for her dark, mirrored lenses. So grateful that any moisture slipping down her face could be attributed to sweat.

No collapsing into a sobbing ball on the field.

Ginny worked her lungs, all this--all these swirling emotions and frightening thoughts would just have to be packed into a small box and pushed to the farthest recesses of her mind. Only to be opened later when no one else was around to see her melt down.

As soon as they were back to the resort, Ginny showered and changed, then set off to find Livan and borrow his car. Normally the two mile walk down the steep and winding hill to town was no problem, but she just didn’t have it in her to wait for the walk there and back.

Deep breaths Ginny, deep breaths, she coached herself.

The drive to town was blur and Ginny could only be glad Livan had wanted to come and was okay with driving. It was so easy to tip her back against the headrest and just melt into the stress. The fear. She jerked when the car stopped.

“Ey, mami, are you okay?” Livan asked, his brow furrowed. She nodded, but it was pretty listless. “Mike mentioned you haven’t been feeling too well?”

Ginny could feel how tight the smile she gave him was, as she nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders, but couldn’t summon up anything better.

“I’m just going to buy some necessities at the mercado, text me when you're ready to go, or we can just meet at the car?” she asked. At his nod she exited the car and gave him a short wave bye.

She wove her way through towering aisles full of general merchandise, and skirted the food stalls, making her way to the personal care section. She stood in front of the shelf holding 5 different brands of pregnancy tests and tried not to feel overwhelmed. She grabbed three different boxes at random and made her way to the pharmacy area. Just need to take better care of myself, she thought as she picked up a bottle of gummy prenatal vitamins from a brand she was familiar with. Vitamins are vitamins. And vitamins are totally good for you. Whatever.

As she grabbed a sprite and bag of takis, juggling all her items, she really wished she’d picked up one the hand baskets at the front. She felt skittish and like any moment everything might just go splat.

She was so discomfited by what she was purchasing she just dumped all her stuff in front of the cashier. Her cheeks blushed in embarrassment. I’m a grown woman, she told herself. What I buy is no one’s business. She pulled her reusable bag out a front pocket of her jean shorts and tried smiling at the nice man. He smiled awkwardly back at her. After paying Ginny hightailed it out of there, texting Livan as she walked back to his car.

Once they were back on the road Livan, reached behind the passenger seat and gave her a large styrofoam container. “It’s albondigas. Something to help settle your stomach.”

And it was such a thoughtful gesture, that Ginny immediately slipped out from under the shoulder belt, put her forehead against her knees and audibly struggled not to cry.

“Baker what’s wrong?” Livan asked alarmed. She knew for a fact Livan had never seen her cry. Not two years ago when she’d almost torn a ligament in her elbow during a pick up game of baseball at the end of dig season. Not even when they’d both been visiting San Diego, staying with Mike, and she’d received a call from her mom informing her of her dad’s cancer diagnosis. (Baby, I’m so sorry to do this over the phone. I just don’t know when your father was ever going to, and you should know. Baby girl, your dad has prostate cancer. He’s going in tomorrow for surgery. They think they might be able to get it all. He might not even need chemotherapy.) She was strong. She had to be. She was her dad’s daughter after all. Livan wouldn't see her cry now. But truthfully this? This was almost too much for her.

She sat up and fixed the seatbelt. Took a deep breath and shook her head. “I’m fine,” she lied. “Just too much time in the sun i think,” she said as Livan parked. “Thank you for the soup Duarte. So much!” and with that she hopped out of his car and made her way to her room.

She set the soup on the little table she had, put the sprite in the minifridge, and pulled out a cold water. She chugged as much as she could, sat down on her bed, opened the takis, and waited to go pee. She also did not look up pregnancy sites on her tablet. Because she was not probably, most likely, definitely not pregnant. Wait. What? She was probably, most likely, definitely not pregnant. There that was better. She drank more water.

Screw it she thought. She would just force herself to pee. She got up and opened all three boxes. She read the first set of instructions, and was glad she didn’t just sit on the toilet.

Deep breaths.

Don’t think about Mike. Not now. Not yet. Don’t do it.

And do not cry.

8 minutes and 5 positive pregnancy tests later, Ginny gave herself permission to cry.

_Can you come over?_

Mike responded almost immediately, _Now? Is everything okay?_

Ginny was unsure what to write back, when Mike beat her to it.

_Are you okay? Livan says you weren’t doing too well earlier. Do you need to go to the hospital?_  
_Omw_

Shoot, she thought, those men gossiped more than the old ladies at church.

 _Not sick. Don’t need a hospital._ She sent right as there was a soft knock on her door, before being open.

Mike took in her red eyes and quickly sat beside her on the bed, wrapping his strong arms around her.

“What’s wrong Gin?” he asked worriedly.

She tucked her head into his neck, before pulling away. She got off the bed and went to the bathroom, coming out a second later with all five tests.

She looked up at him. His brows were drawn together.

“Wha--”

“I’m pregnant Mike,” They cut each other off.

“What?” Mike asked in disbelief.


End file.
